Trumpeter and singer
Chet Baker
is remembered for his lyrical West Coast jazz, a romantic style that influenced artists far beyond the jazz idiom. This influence is celebrated on the 2025 collection
Chet Baker Re:Imagined
. Showcased are artists from jazz, pop, and beyond reinterpreting many of the classic American Popular Songbook standards that
Baker
was known for. Largely unschooled,
was a naturally gifted vocalist, whose singing style often felt like an organic extension of his trumpet playing. He sounded unassuming, with a delivery that could seem as cool and unaffected as it was also deeply intimate and romantic, a vibe that (matched with his movie-star looks) found him dubbed the "James Dean of Jazz." Which is to say that, in comparison to virtuosic singers like
Frank Sinatra
or
Ella Fitzgerald
,
often stuck closely to a song's melody with little improvisational variation, or "scat" improvising (though he did occasionally sing solos in the style of his trumpet playing). It's this understated, bedroom-friendly style that is the primary focus on
Re:Imagined
, and artists like
Eloise
Hohnen Ford
, and
Puma Blue
sink into their own half-lidded and blissed-out takes on these standards.
Blue
's twangy, guitar-heavy reading of "It's Always You" is especially transfixing, pushing the jazz tones of the original into ever more dreamlike shoegaze headspace. Equally compelling is singer
Dodie
's sad-eyed take on "Old Devil Moon," which feels like a cabaret harlequin doll version of
Kate Bush
. For more-hardcore fans of jazz and traditional pop,
Matt Maltese
offers a fairly reverent "My Funny Valentine," while
Benny Sings
' harmonica-accented take on "Time After Time" nicely evokes the soulful, jazz-adjacent '70s R&B of
Stevie Wonder
. While nothing on
transcends the intoxicating timelessness of
's original recordings, it nonetheless pleasantly reveals the lasting influence of both his work and the artful sturdiness of these songs. ~ Matt Collar